Although applicable to any system that uses wireless signals in specific channels for data transmission, the present invention will mainly be described in combination with long term evolution (LTE) networks, and especially with the enhanced machine type communication (eMTC) variant of LTE networks.
In modern wireless communication networks, devices can be assigned different channels. It is therefore necessary to know which channel a device uses, especially for test equipment.
An active channel can e.g. be determined by listening in on every single channel in succession and determining whether a signal can be received on the channel or not. This scheme can be compared to the channel search of television sets. However, this scheme requires a tuner in the receiver and is time consuming.
Accordingly, there is a need for better channel detection.